Here I am again burning the midnight oil getting issue 4 ready for Tuesday. A little snip- snip here. Streeeeeeetch -stretch there. The coffee is hot and My wife and daughter are long asleep.

For some reason My creative process will not kick in until the gun is to the head.

Until the deadline is swinging like a large rusted wreckingball.

This drives my friend and partner absolutely bat-shit crazy. I think I take this poor guy to the brink of sanity and back every issue. My wife says I have a “P” branded on my chest. This “P” stands for Procrastination Man. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound…tomorrow.

Months of preparation go into every Issue.

Dozens of phone calls.

Hundreds of emails.

Then I swoop down in the final minutes like a Tern over a pencil popper. I peck at it a few times, dodge the trebles and fly away. But my partner is the one working that plug day after day.

Cast and retrieve. Cast and retrieve.

Hopefully one day a big multinational corporation will smack that plug clear out of the water, buy SJ for a million bucks and My friend can retire to Cutty. Or the plug will get worked through a school of Interns to field all the calls and emails. Until that happens I’m sure he will keep casting away.

For all the headaches and stress this magazine is HIS baby. It is something truly unique and to tell you the truth it is AWESOME. So I guess the whole point of the bloodshot, coffee crazed blog entry is to give some long overdue kudos to my friend Zeno. Thanks to You we made it 4 frigging issues!  Come up on the beach, put the rod down and take a bow my brother.

-Tommy Corrigan

1:49 am september 6, 2010

• New England super sharpie Steve McKenna
• New Jersey author and guide DJ Muller
• New York surfcaster extraordinaire Crazy Albert Knie
• New poem by a Montauk sharpie Vito Orlando
• Interview with a one of the today’s most popular lure builders
• Kick butt recipe spread by a NY Chef/Surfcaster Andrew Chase
• John Papciak on current state of striped bass fisheries
• Charles Witek on conservation
• Our resident Rod Guru Lou Caruso
• Profile of a New England sharpshooter
• Expanded Gear Review sections
• More original videos from Surfcaster’s Journal
• and more….

yeah, we been busy while you frolicked in the surf all summer

From our friends at NY Office of  Coastal Conservation Association (http://www.joincca.org/)

Commercial increase still threatens striped bass

               On July 21, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission held a hearing at the DEC offices in East Setauket, with respect to a proposal that would increase the coastal commercial quota of striped bass.  It is a controversial topic, and one made even more controversial by the fact that the proposal is based on neither biology nor economics.

               Currently, the population of adult striped bass is in a state of decline.  Due to some instances of low spawning success in the producer areas, the population of adult (age 8+) striped bass is expected to decline at least through 2015 (and beyond, should spawning success decline further).  The decline is already being reflected in angling catch, which fell by more than 65% in just 4 years, between 2006 and 2009 (preliminary harvest estimates for April-June of this year indicate that a further decline has taken place).  In addition, the Chesapeake stock of bass has been struck by the wasting disease Mycobacteriosis, which attacks certain internal organs of the fish and, in advanced stages, manifests itself as bloody skin lesions on the head and body of the bass.  Most bass in the Chesapeake, which produces the majority of fish which migrate along the coast, are infected.  In some areas, more than three-quarters of the bass are diseased, and Myco has been found in 90% of the individuals comprising some year classes.

               In addition, illegal harvest is taking a real toll on the bass.  Such harvest ranges from the large-scale operation recently broken up in the Chesapeake region, which resulted in multiple felony convictions for the sale of $1.6 million worth of illegal striped bass, to the smaller scale poaching operations that we see in the waters off New York City, which are closed to such activity for health reasons.  Recreational fishermen, including many for-hire vessels, who illegally harvest striped bass in the EEZ add to the problem.

In the face of such threats to the health of the striped bass population, ASMFC is attempting to increase the commercial harvest.  It makes no sense.

That is particularly true when one realizes that every recent economic study has determined that the greatest benefit comes from striped bass caught by anglers, not by commercial fishermen.  Whatever the study, the result is the same:  The greatest economic benefit results when 100% of the striped bass harvest is caught by anglers, not by commercial fishermen.  In view of such a unanimous view, increasing the commercial allocation at anglers’ expense makes no sense at all.

ASMFC is attempting to justify the commercial increase by some warped and misbegotten sense of fairness.  Because commercial harvest hasn’t increased as quickly as recreational harvest in recent years, ASMFC is arguing that a commercial increase is in order.  However, in constructing their concept of “fairness”, ASMFC ignores the fact that the number of anglers along the striper coast has increased by 750,000 since 2000, while the number of commercial striped bass fishermen has, at best, held steady.  It ignores the fact that strict regulations for summer flounder and scup, resulting from fisheries managers giving the lion’s share of such species to the commercial sector, has caused anglers to switch effort from such species to striped bass.  ASMFC finds the current striped bass allocation “unfair”, but had no problem, back in 2007, causing anglers to absorb all of the cuts when blackfish harvest had to be cut back by a quarter, and placed no new restrictions on commercial fishermen at all.

Fairness, it would seem, is defined very strangely at ASMFC…

Still, anglers have a chance to make a difference.  Comments are being taken on the measure though October 1.  Thus, everyone is urged to go to the ASMFC website at http://www.asmfc.org , clicking on “Managed Species” and then on “Striped Bass”, and letting managers know just how foolish the proposed commercial closure would be.

Scup population soars while recreational fishery languishes

               At the August Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council meeting, managers decided to increase Total Allowable Landings by 41%.  CCA New York supported and, in fact, requested such an increase, as the scup population is now at about 170% of target levels and even the new, higher allocation is well below the Allowable Biological Catch for the species.  Still, there is more work to do.

               Right now, even though scup are so abundant that commercial landings are beginning to depress the market price, anglers are fishing under some of the most restrictive regulations ever imposed on the fishery.  The reason for such inequity is clear:  The current allocation grants only 22% of the harvest to the general public, and reserves 78% for the private profit of commercial fishermen.  That is wrong.

               Even the Council’s Scup Monitoring Committee has suggested that the Council might want to revisit the allocation.

               As a result, CCA New York has asked the Council to consider the allocation issue, and first to commission an economic study that would determine the relative values of the commercial and recreational fisheries and thus guide the allocation process.  Predictably, commercial interests immediately assailed the proposal.  One Council member called the resulting debate “really ugly” and noted that he had never seen one prominent commercial representative so angry.  It was very clear that commercial interests would rather see their market price collapse than yield a single pound of quota to the angling public.

               The motion to seek an economic study was indefinitely tabled, but the matter was ultimately referred to a Council committee, where it will receive further consideration.  CCA New York will be working with the Council and Council members with respect to the proposed study, and will do all that it can to protect the public interest in this popular species.###

Fluke coming back strong

               For more than a decade, summer flounder management has been one of the hottest hot-button fisheries management issues on the East Coast.  Finally, the debate may be nearing an end.  Thanks to two extremely good year classes—there are indications that the 2008 was the most successful year class in 26 years, while 2009 saw the most successful summer flounder spawn since records were first kept—it is clear that the fluke population will soon be rebuilt.  The best-case scenario will have it rebuilt by the end of this year.  However, biologists believe that the population model used to estimate summer flounder abundance may have overestimated recent recruitment, which means that recovery will take a little longer.  It will, however, be accomplished by the January 1, 2013 deadline, unless managers do something extremely foolish.

               Once summer flounder are rebuilt things will begin to get interesting.

               After the 2006 stock assessment, managers decided that the fluke stock was less productive than they originally believed, and so the biomass target was reduced from about 190 million pounds to around 130 million.  On the positive side, reducing the target by roughly 60 million pounds meant that regulations didn’t have to be quite so tough to assure that the stock would be restored by the January 1, 2013 deadline.  On the negative side, it means that when the target is finally attained, probably at the end of this year, there won’t be as many fluke to go around in 2011 and beyond than there would have been had the biomass target not been lowered.  Thus, while recovery will lead to easing regulations, the regulations for New York anglers will still be pretty tough. 

               That is particularly true in view of the fact that New York State lost its lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service on June 30.  That suit, if you recall, was brought to compel NMFS to adopt the same set of recreational regulations for summer flounder anglers in every state, instead of allocating each state a separate, fixed portion of the recreational harvest.  Because of that loss, New Jersey will continue to harvest nearly 40% of all fluke taken by anglers, while New York will have to settle for around 17 ½%, less than half of New Jersey’s share, and that assures that New York anglers, and New York’s angling businesses, will be getting the short end of the stick for a very, very long time to come. 

               That’s true even though, at the August Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting, the Total Allowable Landings for summer flounder was raised to 29.48 million pounds, a 7 million pound increase.  New York’s anglers will end up with about 2 million pounds of the overall TAL.  Assuming an average weight of about 3.25 pounds per fish, that would give New York anglers about 640,000 fish, approximately 200,000 more fluke than they were allocated this year.  Assuming that New York anglers did not overfish this year, that should mean that regulations will be eased a little bit.  Hopefully, the size limit will fall below twenty inches, and we might get an extra fish or two in the bag.  But, if we assume that every New York angler fishes for fluke, that still means that the average angler will only be able to land about 3 fluke for the entire 2011 season, so the “good old days” aren’t back quite yet.

Salt water license stands, pays dividends

               Anyone who thought that the salt water fishing license debate would end when the license bill was signed into law last year was sadly mistaken.  Between the East End towns which, in a lawsuit brought in state court, claim exemption from licensing requirements based on an archaic royal patent to a legislative campaign waged by angling industry groups intent on license repeal, the marine recreational fishing license remains in a state of play.  While the lawsuit remains active, and a repeal bill passed the Senate, the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee wisely took no action on repeal legislation.  Thus, a license is still required to fish in the marine waters of New York.

               That’s a good thing, for despite the claims of some anti-license diehards, all of the revenues received from the sale of salt water fishing licenses ultimately go into accounts that assure that they will benefit the DEC’s Marine Bureau. 

               The benefits of the salt water license are already beginning to make themselves known.  For the past few years, New York’s artificial reef program has languished from insufficient funding.  No money was available to pay for the administrative work, reef construction and monitoring that is necessary to make such a program viable.  However, in mid-July, the DEC announced that, thanks to the license program, it will again be able to enhance the structure of current artificial reefs, and in addition, would be able to begin work on the so-called “Twelve Mile Reef,” 12 miles south of Shinnecock Inlet.              The Twelve Mile Reef will be a first for the state, which has never before sponsored a reef that far from shore.  Such deep-water structure will offer anglers an opportunity for deeper-water species such as cod, pollock and ling, and hopefully some late-season fishing for black sea bass and blackfish as well. 

               In addition, license money, along with Federal matching funds that the licensing program helped make possible, is being used to rebuild three boat launching and docking areas on Long Island.  It is clear from such projects that the DEC is serious about using license revenues in a way that will benefit the salt water angling community.  As time erodes opposition to the licensing program, it is likely that a number of other initiatives beneficial to recreational anglers will finally be given the funding needed to bring them to fruition.

as for me…I am going to make few casts before work….get my kicks in before the storm makes beach a mess

New fall, new promise of blitzing fish, new adventures and meeting new people

How about new plugs?

If you haven’t heard of BigFish Bait Co and the man behind the curtain, Larry Wentworth, now you will. Live and in living color…

Larry is a good friend of ours and we have fished together at Cuttyhunk on more than one occasion. Besides being a good friend , he is a heck of a lure maker. His Prey swimmer has became one of the stalwarts in my bag, sharing a tube with my mojo A40 from Lordship. Now, I am not suggesting that Prey has reached the same status as A40 but it did get a slot in the bag and considering I only have 4 slots, it should tell you what I think of it. To this day I am impressed the way it casts and of course the way it swims

Check it out for yourself at  http://www.bigfishbaitco.com/customlures/index.php

But seeing someone’s plug on a website is one thing, getting to meet the person who pours his heart and soul into the making of the lure is another.

That’s why we jumped at the chance to sit for an hour with Larry this spring at Cuttyhunk.

I hope you enjoy it

Click here to view the embedded video.

as a special treat for readers of the blog, you will tomorrow have a chance to win this sick Prey swimmer on our blog

Some people will influence your life without ever having a benefit of meeting them. When I joined High Hill Striper Club I was in awe of a then current roster that included such exceptional surfcasters like Fred Schwab and William Doc Muller. Only when I set out to create the clubs first website did I dug a deeper in the fabric of the club and its illustrious history.

One name that stood if not above all, then head and shoulders with such before mentioned surf legends and guys like Jack Frech was Bob Rance. Having caught a monstrous 58 pound 12 ounce striped bass in Montauk in 1964, something that to this day remains a official club record, was enough to insure that his name would forever be associated with the club.

But as great as an accomplishment this was, it wasn’t the only one that most surfcasters will remember him for. Bob Rance was one of the founding members of Save Our Stripers, and has devoted incredible amount of time and energy over 17 years of its existence in trying to protect striped bass and make it a gamefish.

It is really not right for me to try describing how great of the man Bob Rance was so I will take a liberty of quoting another High Hill legend, Fred Schwab from the book “The Complete History of High Hill Striper Club”

Bob served on the Board 8 times, was the club Secretary in 1958, Vice President in 1962 and President in 1966.  He was the winner of at least 7 monthly club contests, including one in November of 1964 when he took a bass of 58-13 which stands to this day as the official club record (see section on 50 pounders). He was/is a gentleman and when speaking chooses his words well.  He loved to fish and was one of the most patient guys that I ever had the pleasure to fish with, and that is certainly why he took the club’s Largest Striped Bass award on four occasions, 1959, 1960, 64 and 84., and the weakfish category in 1983.He contributed a great deal to the club but his contributions were not confined to High Hill along. 
       At some point during early or mid 1967, Bob along with then LIBBA member Irwin Levy and a fellow named Blair Moger hatched an idea relating to the long fought effort to legally have the striped bass classified as a game fish-no sale.  Within a matter of weeks a committee was formed and shortly thereafter an organization entitled Save Our Stripers (SOS), came into being.  A number of High Hill members served on the SOS committee or Board, and I believe it was Artie Glass who suggested the name. SOS was not some small club, it became an organization with several thousand dues paying members and roughly 40 or more clubs and it had the tacit support of tens of thousands.  Bob served as its President during a number of years and was, in general, it’s leading spokesman for much of the 17 years that it was active. 
       Most of us involved in SOS and its goal devoted a considerable amount of time and effort, but I can’t even guess at the amount, which Bob and also Eileen devoted, it had to be staggering! Save Our Stripers never achieved its goal, but I for one believe that the years of relative heated debate in the Legislative Chambers of Albany, through the media and elsewhere played a role in the timing of the birth of the Interstate Striped Bass Management project in late 1976.  When the NYS Legislature passed the 24 – inch Striped Bass Management bill in 1983 SOS led the fight.  Along with two or three others, Bob, Bob Buss and I made numerous trips to Albany to lobby for its passage that year.  Those who were involved in that effort, and most of all Bob have a right to be proud, and those who use that fishery resource owe them a debt of gratitude.

Mr. Bob Rance, surfcaster, conservationist, devoted husband and father passed away Saturday night in Florida with his family around him. I have been told that Bob has been writing a memoir for awhile and hopefully we will see it in the print one day.

I understand that each generation of surfcasters will have their own heroes, their own legends, their own conservational voices. But I am also certain that a man like Mr. Rance is born only once in a generation.

If Bob would see that today’s so-called “recreational” organizations that are funded by commercial and industry sources and whose only point of existence is to make sure that everyone gets to stay in business and could not care less about the fisheries , he would be sick to his stomach.

But Bob would also be happy to see many of you practicing catch and release, fighting to have your voices heard and doing your part to insure that our children would have a chance of tangling with a mighty striper.

In a lot of ways, many of you are following in the footsteps of Mr. Bob Rance, and are carrying on his legacy to protect the striped bass stocks for future generation

Rest in peace Bob, and our sincerest condolences to Rance family .

the plan was to hit the inside the inlet with a 7 foot rod then kill the slack at the inlet jetty, then change in a wetsuit and hit the inlet bar on the drop and if that doesn’t work , hit the oceanfront sandbar in the wetsuit. That some ambitious plan, huh?

Northwest wind laid down the surf, so the only thing I have to worry is the sharks…no big deal

what do they say about best laid plans…..

8 pm

inside the inlet looking for a weakfish with a 7 for St Croix Legend, VS 150 and a 1/2 ounce bucktail with 240s pork rind. The weapon of choice…wind dies and its freaking stuffy…clean water  but nothing doing…rethinking my strategy

9 pm

bump on a bucktail just as I was about to give up on the spot. Then a low teen fish…then the wind starts blowing. After the night before throwing the snakes into a hard NW wind I wanted no part of it.

Then a high teen fish takes my bucktail and I am thinking ”dinner”.

The St Croix Legend might be the best rod I’ve ever owned. It whips the hi-teen fish with ease, it’s almost not even fair. Wind blowing even harder

f this…I am going home.

10 pm

Home. Stuck the fish in the fridge to be filleted tomorrow…hang with Da Wife who was in chatty mood.

12 AM

Laying in the bed but can’t sleep. Then I remembered I left rigged eels in the truck. Oh Shit.

I tell wife I have to get them to the freezer. I walk out to the truck, kids are still watching the tube. I am holding the rigged eels in my hand, all defrosted and juicy. Wind died down again…

Screw it.

Got my clothes back on  and back on the road again heading towards the inlet…wife thinks I lost my mind

12 30

No mood for a wetsuit so I am putting on waders. I’ve never fished this bar in the inlet before. Its dry at low tide but getting to it might be tricky as the tide hasn’t dropped enough yet. I stepped in the water and I immediately sunk to my armpits. Oh crap, I got my week old DROID in my pants!

Too late to cry now, if it gets wet, it gets wet

Fortunately ,the moon is bright and I am not totally discombobulated. The bottom raises quickly and I am on the bar. Walking, walking, walking, more then 1/2 mile into the inlet. I am saying to myself ” I will get nailed by a @#%^ boat out here”. The poachers are out in force running with no lights and live lining undersized blackfish.

I push as far as I am comfortable and start casting but encounter weed almost immediately. Oh, that bed seems so inviting right now, what was I thinking?

 I try over the top and that is working but I really don’t want to fish this way. I got no choice however. RuRu big Danny, mojo Lordship A40, Redfin….nada. First cast with a BigFish Prey and I am in. A very respectable fish in the 20′s…that’s all she wrote but now I can look my wife in the eye and say”yeah, it was worth it”

Walking back against the tide is a bitch. Even although the water is only knee high, the current is now ripping and pushing the water in my direction. It’s like wading through a running river.

1 30 AM

Decided not to hit the other sandbar but instead head for the bay bridges. Holy crap, I’ve never seen more spearing in my life! Massive schools congregating under the bridge, so thick you can walk on the water. I am standing in the traffic as drunks are zooming down the parkway inches from me leaning over the rail. All I see is small bluefish slashing under the bridge but they are thick. Really thick.

Not feeling like losing a plug in the piling to a 2 pound bluefish

2 30 AM

Good night moon

snooooooze